It's really cute and all to suppose that our household pets understand words.
They understand dick-squat.
Sorry to ruin the pet party.
Sure, Newman will come when I say "Newman", but he'll also come when I say "Stuman", "Glueman", "Dooman" etc. You get the idea.
Said with the correct tone, Newman will also answer to "Shitface", "Hemorrhoids", "Rotting Chicken" and "Taylor Swift".
If he really understood words, when I have a cookie in my hand and call "Fetus Face", Newman would think, "Man, I'd love a cookie right now and my daddie has one, but clearly he wants to give it to a dog named "Fetus Face", which is a pretty strange dog name."
Pets, especially dogs, understand general sounds, voice tones and eye contact. Sometimes the syllabic makeup also counts. If I call him "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", he's licking his groin before I get to "fragil"
That's it for understanding.
Incidentally, the only name Newman wouldn't answer to was "Donald Trump". Instead, he held a town hall meeting, where tens of thousands of fans watched him fellate the staff of a Taco Bell. The chihuahua joined in.
There are lots of people who love to assign meaning and intention to pet behaviour, and that meaning and intention just happens to correspond to the way humans think. Because all creatures, obviously, strive to behave like humans. I try to as well.
There's a word for assigning human intentions to animal behaviour. Anthropomorphism, which, I think, makes a great dog name.
My wife also suffers from manthropomorphism. She tries to assign all kinds of meaning to my behaviour, and it's a complete waste of time. I don't even know what my behaviour means.
On top of that, I answer to "Cold Beer". "Come here Cold Beer."
